CBS Was Marvelous!

The girls and I went to Bible study this morning and it was great!

Our day started out ominously. We were out of the door to walk Caleb to school at 8.42 a.m. Not good, since the kids go in to their rooms at 8.55 and it takes us at least 15 minutes to walk there. On a whim, I checked the bus schedule at the stop outside our house...8.44 a.m. Perfect!! The bus came up just as I got the bus fare sorted and we hopped on for our 1 minute ride down the street. We actually made it to school before the teachers blew the whistle to signal the kids to line up to go in. Whew! And we didn't even run!

Then the girls and I headed to the bus stop directly across the street from Caleb's school. It is the stop for the #17 bus, which is a good route. It runs roughly every 7-8 minutes (as opposed to the 20 or more on the other routes) and it goes not only to Reading Town Centre, but out the other side. Most routes just go from an outer point into town centre, then back out their original route. Imagine a clock face. The #31 that goes right in front of our house goes from the 10 o'clock position to the middle of the dial, then back out to the 10 o'clock position. The #17 goes from 10 o'clock, through the middle, then out to the 4 o'clock.

Anyway, this was good because we needed to go just to the other side of town centre to the church where the Community Bible Study class meets. The lady leading the class called me last night to let me know that it might be easier to ride the bus to the study than driving since traffic in and around the town centre is a mess at 9 in the morning.

I think we lingered too long at Caleb's school waving bye, because we got to CBS 10 minutes late. But they were still having coffee and chatting, so it was not a big deal. Next Friday I'll leave Caleb's school sooner. Oh - part of the problem was that I got another of those bus drivers who wouldn't let me on the bus because there already was a pushchair and a wheelchair. So we had to wait for the next bus. And as it turns out, the driver of that bus turned away 2 more moms with strollers later in the route after we got on because there was no room. So maybe I'm just not riding the busy buses enough to see them turn people with pushchairs away.

Anyway - we got there just fine. I think Julie wasn't feeling too well this morning. She was in a foul mood all the way to the church, then she cried in the creche (nursery) so much that they had to come get me later. She & Audrey were the only 2 kids there. There's another kid, but he/she wasn't there today.

There were only 12 of us, including 2 core group leaders, the coordinator, and the senior leader. For my CBS friends - she's called senior leader instead of teaching director because the class is just a satellite class right now and not its own class. Anyway, we sat around a table and discussed Matthew 2. The lesson was so short compared to the lessons at home! It was 1 page front and back of commentary on the last lesson and 1 page front and back of questions. This is in contrast to the 5-6 pages of commentary and 4-5 pages of questions in the lessons at home. I think some of the ladies went into shock when they heard how long our lessons are at home!

After we discussed the questions, we all went into the sanctuary of the church to hear the teaching (or lecture as we call it at home). I had Julie with me by this time. They came and got me after our discussion and I went and got her during the 2nd coffee break of the morning. She was doing fine with me, but I was concerned about her noise level because this sanctuary was all wood. Wood floors. Wood pews. Balcony around 3 sides of the room with more wood. Lots of baby noise amplification properties. So I took her back to the creche, which was just off the sanctuary, so I could still hear her crying. After 5 minutes, I went back and just sat there with her. I put her on the floor and encouraged her to play. She's got to get used to this place! The whole time, Audrey was happy and content to just play with everything. The young ladies keeping the kids (Maggie, Charlotte and Jetta - pronounced "Yetta") got a kick out of Audrey. Who doesn't?

Finished up CBS and jumped on a bus back to town (Reading). I actually had to let 2 buses go past without boarding them because they had steps and were not the "low rider" version of buses that I can just push a stroller on to. But since it was a busy bus stop I didn't have to wait more than 10 minutes.

We got off at the mall to eat lunch. We ate in a department store. This particular store has 2 cafes. After lunch, we wandered through the kids' section. I bought Julie a new stroller toy - a very colorful and somewhat noisy giraffe. And we bought Audrey some new boots. They are fabulous! Purple suede with a large purple and pink flower at the top of the front and another at the top of the back and with purple tassels. They are just fabulous!

Then we wandered around the mall and the shopping area beside it. As we were waiting for a bus to get back home, I got a call on my cell phone from the grocery delivery man. He was at the house to deliver my groceries! I had forgotten!!! You know when you get "that feeling?" The one where you know you're missing something or forgetting something but you can't quite nail it down? I had been having that feeling all afternoon. Oh well. He said he'd slip a phone number through my mail slot for me to call to arrange another dropoff.

We got home without incident and I found the number. I was able to arrange for us to pick up the groceries between 6:30 and 7 later that evening. I got Julie fed and changed into more comfy clothes because by now it was 2:45 and we were to go get Caleb at 3. As I was getting the girls' strollers ready to go, I glanced out the window. In the 30 minutes since we got home, the sky had opened up and it was pouring!

So I got the strollers out on our front porch area - out of the rain - got them hooked together, got the girls in and got them covered with the stroller rain covers. Then I got myself set and we headed out. I won't go into the whole wet trip to school, but I will say that the hood of my jacket sits off center and it annoys me. It has a little brim, so it's noticeable (at least to me) that it's not centered. We got to school 5 minutes late and I was wet. My shoes were wet, but that was no big deal since my socks were dry. My jeans were soaked where all the runoff from my jacket ran off, and my water resistant jacket had proved once again that "resistant" is not the same as "repellent." My shirt was wet in a couple of areas.

We collected Caleb and by the time we got about 1/2 a block away, the rain had stopped. We were able to walk without our hoods up for most of the way home, but then it started again. We got home and it took me 5 minutes to get strollers inside, raincovers off, girls out, wet shoes off everyone (Audrey included because the stroller rain cover dripped on her shoes), wet clothes off me & Caleb and wet jackets and shoes into our drying cupboard (the hot water heater closet). Julie was the only one who got home completely dry.

I made the kids a tea party for their snack. They had hot chocolate and a cookie and a toast/cracker thing. It took Audrey the better part of an hour to finish hers. Plus she made a huge mess with the hot chocolate since she insists on drinking it out of the spoon. But they love their tea parties.

Steve got home later than usual - around 6 - and we loaded everybody up a little bit after that to get our groceries. Audrey and Caleb were both personally offended that they were not going in to the grocery store with me. They didn't know that I was just going to pick up the order and not do the full-blown shopping myself. We got the groceries without incident and headed back towards home. We had already decided to get fish & chips for dinner, so it was just a matter of stopping and picking it up.

We stopped at Mr. Fish - who also sells kebabs. Kebabs here are what we would call pitas at home. Steve got a small kebab (lamb), and we ordered 2 fish fillets and 2 large chips. The small kebab turned out to be the size of half a dinner plate, our 2 fish fillets were each at least 12 inches long, and the large chips were enough to take up the whole center of the table when we unwrapped them from the paper they were in. I think a small order of chips would have sufficed. The kebab was fabulous! The fish was ok and the chips were so-so. We kept laughing about how greasy the fish & chips were. You have to laugh because if you stop to think that you're putting that much grease into your body, it makes you ill. Julie even got into the act by eating a couple of chips.

It's now Saturday morning. I had a horrible night full of dreams. Yucky dreams. The kind of dreams where when you wake up you want to slug the person in the dream - this time it was Steve. Poor Steve. I didn't slug him because real-Steve has no control over what dream-Steve does. But I wanted to slug him. I told real-Steve just a few minutes ago that i am not having any more fish and chips. I'll blame the dream on all that grease.

More later!